Galway International Arts Festival and Róisín Dubh are delighted to announce that The Saw Doctors will play a second concert at the Heineken Big Top on Saturday July 29.
The Saw Doctors last performed at the Festival in 2004 in a double-bill with The Undertones at the Warwick Hotel.
The Saw Doctors were discovered by Mike Scott of The Waterboys on a stormy Tuesday night in Galway in the 1980s, plying their trade with more gumption than virtuosity in the back room of The Quays Bar. Scott offered them the support slot on The Waterboy’s Irish Tour to launch the 'Fisherman’s Blues’ album in 1988 and they went on to support The Waterboys on their six-week tour of Great Britain in Spring 1989.
Their first single, ‘N17’, was written by the band’s singer Davy Carton and guitarist Leo Moran. Their second release ‘I Useta Lover’ entered the Irish single charts at No. 27, from where it slowly climbed, taking seven weeks to reach Number One and remaining on top for the following nine weeks, going on to become the biggest selling Irish single, outselling U2 and Sine?ad O’Connor.
The Saw Doctors made their first trip to The United States in 1991, a journey they have made almost a hundred times since. A handful of singles went Top 20 in the British Charts through the nineties and The Saw Doctors appeared on BBC's 'Top of the Pops’ three times with ‘Small Bit Of Love’, ‘To Win Just Once’ and ‘World Of Good’. The Saw Doctors third album ’Same Oul’ Town’ reached No. 6 in the UK Album Charts in 1996.
The end of 2011 brought another surprise hit for The Saw Doctors – having included a verse and chorus of 'Downtown' in the show-closing 'Hay Wrap', the band noticed that ‘Downtown’ captured the imagination of the audience, making it a potential contender for the Christmas single. On a long-shot, producer Phillip Tennant got in touch with Petula Clark's manager and a recording session was arranged in London, where the old 60s classic was re-vamped and recorded - 'The Saw Doctors featuring Petula Clark'! The lively duet made it to number 2 in the Irish singles Christmas chart.
